


Dick and Damian

by Revival_Push



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revival_Push/pseuds/Revival_Push
Summary: One-shots predominately featuring Dick and Damian, but also includes the Bat family and friends.Predates the New 52 reboot.





	1. Can't Win Them All

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing.

"Wayne residence." Dick murmured distractedly into the receiver of the kitchen landline as he watched Alfred dump a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chunks into an oversized mixing bowl. 

"Yes, is this Mr. Grayson?" 

"That's me." Alfred shifted his stance, effectively blocking Dick's view of the bowl. Possibly intentionally. "Who's speaking?" Dick covered the receiver with one palm, “I know you’re just picking out the chocolate, Alfred.   
For his part Alfred threw a slightly scandalized look his way. 

"It's Principle Carlson, from Tim's school."

Dick closed his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Uh, is this about what happened the other day? Look, I know you're new to the school, and this probably doesn't reflect very well on him, but really, Tim's a great kid. Abnormally good." Distantly, he could hear voices arguing upstairs in distinctly irritated tones that were punctuated with the occasional 'No!' "He just can't stand a bully –he's feels like he's just as bad by not taking action and –"

"I remember the speech you gave, Mr. Grayson," The voice remained patient, lined with a cautious air Dick didn't quite like, "and I understand. All his teachers have backed you up on Tim, and I've decided to let it go. This time."

"Oh." Dick's hand dropped from his face. "That's…good news then." He squinted his eyes open slowly. "So…Is there something else I can help you with?"

Carlson paused. "I wanted to talk about you, Mr. Grayson."

"Me?" Some this thumped on to the floor upstairs, resounding heavily enough he wasn’t surprised when it was accompanied by a sudden crash. Dick narrowed his eyes at the staircase. "I graduated a long time ago, Principle Carlson."

"Not that long ago. Mr. Grayson, do you mind me asking how old you are?"

The foundation of the house shook in a sudden, violent surge companioned by muffled shouts that rang out in two very distinctive high and low tones. "Good God," Alfred murmured with a practiced mix of exasperation and deadpan before taking off to inspect the damage, leaving Dick with a parting warning not to touch the cookie dough while he was gone. Dick gave a pious nod.

"Excuse me?" Dick sounded as Alfred exited the room.

"Twenty-six, twenty-seven?" The man listed.

Dick shifted the phone to his other ear and reached for the bowl of cookie dough Alfred left unattended. "Twenty-four."

He paused again, surprised, "That's very young."

"Oh-kay." Dick dug out a new spoon from the cabinet door at his hip and shoveled it into the dough, mindfully keeping one eye on the kitchen's entryway. "So?"

The voice curved with a new edge, "So you're a very young, single man trying to raise not one, but two boys, and..." He cleared his throat in a jolted rush that sounded a lot like a fight to regain the calm demeanor the conversation started with, "I just imagine that's a lot of pressure."

Alfred's voice rang out from above, a little higher than he was used to, "Alright, alright. Master Timothy, please grab the fire extinguisher from the hall. And let's get you down stairs, Master Damian."

Dick tightened his grip on the phone and scrunched his nose at the scent of smoke making its way towards the downstairs. It smelled a little off. Like…burnt eggs? And something else. Something bitter and bizarrely cloying…

Dick cleared his throat. "We're managing just fine, thank you."

"Let me grab the cat first!"

"Master Damian, please! I'm sure the cat –"

"Mr. Grayson, I'm sorry if I seem to barging in your personal life–"

"You are barging into my personal life."

" –but really, all I'm worried about is the boys."

A smaller explosion went off, shaking the walls and causing small bits of white to flake down from the ceiling. Dick gave a silent swear and leaned over the cookie dough bowl protectively. "My boys, Carlson. Not yours and not your concern."

"As Tim's Principle, I assure you–"

"Look, I won't lie to you. This isn't easy, and it's all a bit terrifying. But honestly, I'm more worried about the homicidal cat my youngest dragged into our house mauling Tim than I am about him going on a violent rampage or something. It's hard without our father, but I'm an adult now and I am more than capable of taking care of my brothers. As long as they are healthy, happy, and not sneaking feral animals into the house, I say I'm winning." Dick stuck a heavy spoonful of cookie dough into his mouth and pulled out the utensil in a harsh punctuation, "Are we done here?"

He sighed. Carlson meant well. Dick was just getting tired of people –the media, his friends, even the League – questioning his ability to take care of teenagers while they stood with smiles and nods of approval when he took on the mantle of Batman without worrying if he was good enough for that job.

"Homicidal cat?" He repeated slowly.

Dick stuck the spoon back into the bowl. "Well, I can't win them all. Good night, Principle Carlson."


	2. Things That Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.

"Robin, just let go."   
  
"Shut up!"   
  
"Dami…"   
  
I said shut up! Shut up shut up!" But Damian’s hands were cramped and coiled like rusted springs and he was tired. Truly, for the first time he could remember, done. Everything hurt. He'd been in worse pain, sure, there was always worse, but everything about this was different. This wasn't him pushing his body to keep himself alive. This wasn't a silly training exercise mother had set up. This wasn't a killing dance. This, all of this, the pain and tired and fear was about someone else.   
  
And he was failing. God help him, but he was exhausted.   
  
Damian clawed his fingers into the bicep that was wrapped around the thin metal bar of the railing. His bleeding face was half plastered against it and he couldn’t help but groan when the pressure against his hip doubled against the barred rail as arms slackened. "You're going to have to grip harder Nightwing."   
  
"I. Can make it. By myself." Grayson inhaled wetly. Damian could see the inside lining of his lips were a bright red. Maybe a punctured lung. That was bad. Maybe it was just a few knocked teeth. Maybe Grayson bit his tongue.    
  
"You're lying to me." Damian accused, "You said you wouldn't lie to me. Ever."   
  
"Am. Not."   
  
But Damian only squeezed tighter because when it came to the bottom of everything Grayson could do, lying was not his forte, just as figuring out the truth was not Damian's.

“I can’t tell if you’re lying, but if you are I  _ hate you _ .”   
  
Grayson passed out approximately fourteen seconds later. Damian had counted out each one. A stream of blood that ran down from Damian’s forehead to his chin, dripping to his collar nearly in time with his count.   
  
He gives Grayson the credit that maybe, maybe he could have made it. Made it with luck and muscle memory and good timing and if he didn’t have a leg so messed up the bone was breaking through the skin and a concussion so bad he walk so safety before  _ and and and _ … Damian was going to drop him. He honest to God was not going to make it.    
  
But he wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t. Because Grayson would never leave him, even when his own mother had left him and his father wanted nothing to do with him Grayson wanted him to stay.     
  
“Grayson I swear to God I will follow your useless ass off this ledge.    
  
It wasn't fair. He had allowed this to happen, and he really, really shouldn't have. Damian didn’t mean to care, didn’t mean to find a home. He wanted to train under the Batman. He just wanted to learn from the best so that Damian could  _ be  _ the best. Instead he was clinging to the deadweight of some idiot who preferred disgusting twenty dollar wine and owned metallic spandex.    
  
Grayson was a weakness in him now, and losing him, whatever he had once believed, was no longer an option. But his eyes were heavy with pain and exhaustion and Grayson was almost certainly dead.

“Please. Please don’t go.” 

                                                                  ***   
  
Bruce found Damian slumped against dented metal rails, staring down the shaft below through an unseeing, semiconscious haze as Dick’s weight strained his body against the bars. His shoulder jutted awkwardly from the joint and there was a gash on his forehead that bled freely.   
  
He looked bad. So bad for a second Bruce had thought Damian was dead. Worse still, Damian looked a lot like Dick had nearly two decades ago. Bruce didn't like the comparison. Didn't like that he saw it there.    
  
Bruce wasn't sure if he even sure he liked anything anymore.   
  
A lot of things had changed.   
  
Bruce knelt down slowly. If it had been Dick or Tim or even Jason, he would have crouched down next to the boy closely enough that the ends of his cape would have brushed over Robin's boots. Instead he found himself balanced on the balls of his feet, a full arm length between them and his cape brushed off one shoulder. There was a pulse.   
  
"Robin." But he didn't turn in recognition.   
  
A hand on his shoulder. He was a lot bigger than Dick had been at that age. More like Jason than anyone. He’d be a big man.   
  
If he lived to see manhood.   
  
"Robin." Louder this time. More authority. The tone he used when Jason had begun to lash out or when Dick would get distracted on missions. Bruce wasn't sure he ever even used it on Tim. Tim had been a good Robin, good in a way Jason couldn't quite reach, even when he had really tried to be his best, and good in a different way than Dick, who had always been more confused and dark than he would ever admit to. More than anyone who knew him would ever really believe. But Damian. Damian Wayne. Damian al Ghul. He was a different breed entirely.   
  
Bruce hesitated some, though he wouldn't ever admit it, and reached out to Robin's shoulder again. He took in the failure to react and the odd roll of the boys head. Damian’s lips parted slightly. He would pull through this.    
  
Even if Dick hadn't been on the other end of Damian's body he thinks he would have saved the boy. He wouldn't have let Damian die because he was a Robin, even if Bruce himself hadn't chose him. And because if he hadn't Dick would probably never speak to him again.   
  
And really, Bruce had allowed this to happen, and he shouldn't have.   
  
But Dick had always been his weakness, and losing him, whatever he had once believed, was no longer an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a message after the ___.


	3. Car Rides and Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.

"…and then it exploded and sent egg spatter and super-heated peroxide all over the place. We both still have some scars on our backs from that, though Wally definitely caught the worst of that one. I've almost never seen his Uncle Berry that mad. Or freaked out. Mostly freaked out though." Dick gave a fond groan and adjusted his lazy grip on the steering wheel. Dick liked this new road trip thing he and Damian were doing. It was fun to get out of the city, and even though Damian had spent plenty of his childhood cooped up in mystic mountain temples the kid didn’t really know what he was missing by living in a place like Gotham. National parks and wide open highways and a couple of towns claiming to have the largest ball of twine. There was this whole other world outside of their little domain. Besides, he also liked that Damian, very unlike Bruce, just inherently trusted Dick not to get them both wrapped around a tree. Dick couldn’t help but feel they were  _ making progress _ .  

Damian tightened his already clamped up mouth. 

Or maybe Dick just liked that Damian didn't  _ voice _ his concerns over his driving.

A pause passed through the space between them and Dick opened his mouth again to start up on something else but for once Damian beat him to the punch.

"You talk a lot." Damian observed.

Dick shrugged and kept his eyes on the road. "I like talking."

"Believe me, Grayson, I can tell." He frowned slightly and turned back to the passing landscape of trees and pale dirt. "Father isn't very talkative."

"No kidding, kid."

"Don't call me that." Damian sat quietly for a few minutes, not fiddling with the radio or drumming his fingers rapidly against the armrest as Dick or Jason or even Tim would have at that age.

"If father doesn't talk constantly,” Damian inquired, “then why would you?"

Dick thought for a moment. "Compensation." He decided with a light smile, "Bruce and I are good at that."

"Hmmm."

Dick squinted at a distant road sign. It was sort of interesting out here, for a while, and he would never admit it to Damian, but after a while the open space left Dick feeling sorely exposed. "Is there something on your mind, Damian?"

Damian didn't answer for several minutes, and Dick swore he could see the kids mind sorting through options in the silence, so long that Dick thought maybe he wouldn’t answer. 

"It's just…" He inhaled sharply, "Father talks to you, and you're very nearly  _ certifiable _ ..."

" _ Thanks. _ "

"...and to your ridiculous  _ replacement _ ..."

"He has a name, you know."

"...who can barely walk in  _ a straight line _ ..."

"Tim.  _ Tim. _ And he walks just fine."

"...let alone be a proper  _ Robin _ ...”

"And he didn't  _ replace _ me, per se either."

"...and yet I find that he addresses me very differently than he does either of you two and..."

"Give it some time. He was like that with  _ all of us _ ."

"...it seems completely ridiculous that I am even concerning myself with this, but..."

"The man can't even keep a goldfish alive. Having another kid running around probably worries him."

"...despite the fact that I came to live with him for the purpose of training..."

"You're reading way too much into this…"

"I can't help but come to the conclusion that I am not measuring up to his standards."

"That's ridiculous, Damian. You're his son."

"Which  _ you  _ set, by-the-way. So really it wouldn’t be that hard to best."

" _ We all are,  _ and he hasn't fed any of us to the dinosaur yet. And you know I’m actually fairly talented, you know."

"And I don't know what I am doing incorrectly..."

"Damian."

"...but..."

" _ Damian." _

"...surely  _ you _ are aware of the problem at..."

" _ Damian _ ."

"hand…  _ What?" _

Dick blinked. 

Damian growled and crossed his arms tightly. " _ Fine. _ Never mind. It’s nothing.."

"Damian. Damian, he wants you to be  _ happy _ … Maybe he's worried, okay?"

"What? That I'm not good enough? Strong enough?" Damian whirled on him, "Because that's ridiculous! I mean, you're barely average height now, and when you were my age you probably looked infantile in comparison to my build."

"Hey, now, I wasn't… No, you know what? Never mind." Dick inhaled, "What I mean is he probably is worried you are a bit too intense.  _ Not  _ in your training" He added before Damian could cut him off, "You need to be that way, but just…"

Damian eyed him.

Dick shrugged, "You're a kid, Damian. Enjoy it while you can."

…

…

…

"What?"

"Are you  _ messing with me _ , Grayson?"

…

_ Moment over. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a message after the ___.


	4. Thawing Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.

Batman strode through the halls, Robin, in his fully drenched ensemble was slung over his shoulder in what the boy seemed to find to be an extremely offensive manner.

A pensive James Gordon Followed closely. "Is he alright, Batman?" No Batman had ever –as far as he knew– been inside the main building, just random visits to the Commissioner's personal office. It seemed logical, considering Gordon was probably the only officer for years guaranteed not to shoot the vigilante on sight.

The boy struggled stiffly, every flail sending a spray of icy droplets into the walls. "I'm –ergh, I am fine! Put. Me. Down!" Robin sneezed with a shocked start and gave a small shudder that seemed to rattle his whole body. "I hate water," He announced.

Batman rounded the corner that led into the locker rooms and headed over to the showers. They weren't alone. In between the rows of blue metal lockers stood a number of Gotham's finests. Batman didn't acknowledge them.

Robin twisted in his mentors grasp and was hit by a wall of hot water for his trouble. "I hate  _ cold  _ water." He amended.

Seemingly oblivious to the eyes of the officers in the room, Batman gently lifted his protégé from his shoulder and plopped him all the way down onto the tiled ground.

"Stay there." Batman commanded. Robin gave an almost inaudible sigh. "When you get used to it, turn it up. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Batman tilted his head towards Gordon as he walked away, giving a final glance back at Robin before entering the hall again. A few of the officers trailed them from a few yards. Gordon figured the rest stayed back to ogle at the close up of the new Boy Wonder. Robin, even  _ that _ Robin, was a lot less terrifying than the Batman.

"I wasn't aware it was raining that hard out there."

Batman wiped excess water from his cowled face, "It isn't." He frowned. "Leave us." Batman ordered, "Now." He didn't look behind them. No one followed.

Gordon frowned. The mantle was changing him. He didn't like it.

The Commissioner unlocked his office door and led the way in. As soon as it clicked locked again Batman sighed. "Could you please ask Montoya to watch over Robin? Keep people out of his face?" Batman leaned against an armchair. "He's had a long night."

"I can tell." Gordon made the call and grabbed a half full coffee mug off his desk.

Batman didn't acknowledge the comment, "He retrieved the hard drive though."

The Commissioner set down the phone and gave Batman a steady look, "I imagine it took quite the beating."

"Yes." Batman turned towards the window, "If I have trouble recovering the data I'll get my personal Geek Squad to take a look at it."

"You know, he doesn't say things like that."

"What?" Batman smirked, "The Batman doesn't tease?"

He took a sip out of the mug. "He doesn’t. But I know a few Robin's who did."

Batman smiled the crazy grin from his youth, "And one who doesn't."

"And one who doesn't." Gordon agreed with his own smile, "You're doing good for him though. Once he would have tried to cut off your head before letting you carry him like that."

Batman shrugged. "It takes time to grow up. To heal."

"No kidding." Gordon smiled, "You had me going for a second there though. The grim faced Batman, terror of the night."

He gave a noncommittal shoulder lift, "What can I say? I never could keep a straight face."

A low beep emitted from a communicator at his belt, "Alright, looks like he's done thawing out. I'll keep you posted on the Intel we receive."

"Likewise, Batman."

The caped crusader gave the Commissioner a half wave and turned for the door, his footsteps making no sound against the floor.

"And Batman?"

He didn't turn to face him. "Yes, Commissioner?"

"Let's get that boy of yours smiling like that a bit more."

Batman barked out a laugh, "Work in progress, Commish, but there's hope yet." He paused at the door handle, "Don't worry, he'll be just as silly as the rest of us were." And then he was gone.

Gordon exhaled slowly and emptied the rest of his mug, "As long as you keep that one from being as crazy as you were, fine with me."

"We’re all crazy here, Jim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a message after the ___.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a message after the ___.


End file.
